The bullying of academics follows a pattern of horrendous, Orwellian elimination rituals, often hidden from the public. Despite the anti-bullying policies (often token), bullying is rife across campuses, and the victims (targets) often pay a heavy price.
"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence." Leonardo da Vinci - "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men [or good women] do nothing." Edmund Burke

December 21, 2014

This
will be my last seasonal message to you as your Dictator at Bulster
University, those of you who are still lucky enough to be employed, and
in celebration of that positive thought I encourage you to give thanks
in the University Chapel every day. For those of you who have been
pointed or even dragged screaming, feet-first, to redundancy, early
retirement or have fallen ill in service this year, I want you to see it
as a new door that had opened for you, and return all Bulster
property before our security team summarily escort you off the premises.

It
has been a hard year for Bulster. Things have not quite worked out with
DEL and thanks to government cut-backs we are running a bit short of
money and students. We are having a few difficulties with our “Build
Belfast” campaign and those pesky property moguls keep upping the
“bakseesh” on us. I’ve even started to get worried about my own
properties and doubt I’ll ever get tenants for them. And even worse, the
Saudis owe us £2 million which I was relying on for a few readies at
Christmas, and many of Bulster’s emerging market investments have just
not emerged! In fact things are so bad I think I can now appreciate what
happened to my old friend Gerry Jameson, and I hope you can sympathise
how distressing it is for those of us in power when things go a bit
pear-shaped.

The
great thing is that at Bulster, we are all in this together and we are
all making sacrifies to try to get Bulster back on its feet, and ready
for your new dictator, sorry I mean new President. I myself have been
making personal cut-backs. Where possible I’ve been making do with upper
class rather than a sky-suite unless its a particularly long flight. I
never use a hotel with more than 5*- no 7* opulent palaces for me,
fellow Bulsters! Bulster never quite recovered from that time Gerry
spent 25k on a weekend with the girls a la Peninsula in Hong
Kong! And you can appreciate the great saving on booze alone during my
time compared with Gerry has allowed us to put a penny or two by! Every
little helps!

I
know some of you have been worried about the amount of money we’ve been
spending on legal bills and employment tribunals and this kind of
thing. Personally I think it would be far cheaper if we could just
assassinate these dissident members of staff, and an old mate I used to
run into in the Lodge Hotel even told me he knew a few boys who had quit
the paramilitary racket and were going free-lance. But my henchman “Mad
Bonnie” whose had a bit of a run in with the peelers recently himself,
tells me a shooting or two on campus might not look so good for our
post-conflict institute, so he’s persuaded me instead that selective
internment might be the thing to deal with these niggly complainers!

Those
of you who might be inclined to think of my past decade as a bit of a
black time, might take sympathy from what those CIA fellows said
recently defending torture and counter-terrorism. When Gerry blew the
budget on us, we all had our own terrible 9/11 here at University House.
Desperate times demand desperate remedies. And I also want to tell you
that all those stories about water-boarding and electric torture in the
Tower basement were greatly exaggerated. I never authorised “Mad Bonnie”
to use anything stronger than knuckle-dusters and in extremis his University-issued taser. Gee thanks to “Mad Bonnie” and me, Bulster’s a walking PANORAMA investigative report waiting to happen!

And
let me just squash that rumour that I’d closed the SCR to turn it into a
“listening post”. Don’t believe everything those lefty no-gooders in
the union might tell you. Most of them need a good kick up the arse!
Anyways we needed the SCR for all those Arab fellows with their special
diets, only they aren’t coming any more….I thought once they gave me a
magic carpet and a Rolex we were best mates, I even read a bit of the Quran in anticipation…Now they aren’t even answering my calls…..Christmas
always makes me feel emotional. It hardly seems like yesterday that I
led the palace coup, and was full of excitement in my early days of
dictatorship. Believe me it gets lonely at the top. I spend far too much
time with “Mad Bonnie” and he really smells kinda garlicly of Sodium pentothal and
that other “truth serom” stuff he must have down there in the Bulster
dungeons. That banking fellow on Council is too smart for his own boots,
and Jimmy never returns my calls either. I suppose he might be off
somewhere on a Hobbit movie.

Recently
I’ve been asking myself what I’ve got to show for it? True I’ve had a
fat pay-packet for a while, a nice pad, luxury foreign travel and I’ve a
bit of pension for a rainy day- yeah a few millions worth! But QUB
laughed at me when I put in for their vacancy and to be honest I haven’t
made the short-list anywhere else. In fact I didn’t even get a reply
when I inquired about heading up a miserly FE college. And those buggers
in Stormont have blocked me from getting any medals, never mind a gong.
Even my cleaner has an MBE for some shitty Ballysally Community
initiative, and here I am a hard-working dictator and no-one’s thought
to award me anything.

Didn’t
my fellow dictator, President Idi Amin, have all sorts of medallions on
his uniform and wasn’t he just a humble Ugandan soldier? I’m wondering
if I should follow Idi’s example and go off into exile in one of those
Arab states. Maybe the Saudis would offer me some kind of retirement
post in lieu of the £2 Million they still owe Bulster! Life is
so hard for former dictators- I’m just remembering what happened to
that dead Chilean President, General Pinochet - it got to the stage where
he couldn’t leave the country for fear of rendition to some foreign
court in handcuffs! Gee I might end up like “Mad Bonnie” being
questioned by the local police or being stopped at the airport!

And
now I’m gonna have to get used to a life without servants and waiters
and all the perks that go with having a University Mansion. I’m gonna
have to down-size badly and maybe put some stuff into storage,
especially those Arab rugs and things- they’re so bulky, and not maybe
my best memory of good old Bulster! Gotta get things ready for the new
man…..Succession-planning we modern dictators call it. Better try to
make a start with that at the Christmas hols. “Bonnie’s” kindly offered
to lend me a hand if he’s out of work by then, and Dean Raisin gave me a
cup of tea and a bun yesterday- its good to have friends... now its only
me and the dog.

And
talking about dogs! I just can’t understand why thev’ve all gone and
bitten me as I thought I was a good master. I was only just chatting to a
few of the union boys in BA’s lounge last week (terrible the riff raff
they let in these days) and we agreed it was all down to a couple of
loud-mouths. After all Olly and the others bought the union off a long
time ago. There’s hardly a true socialist among them apart maybe from
that ideological girlie, and the union heavies have muscled her. Now
even the footballers hate me and there’s talk the entire staff will
boycott my farewell do, apart from of course “Bonnie” but he might have
to get day-release to attend.

Well
I’d better get on with the rest of my Christmas cards. Let me sign off
now with Presidential seasons greetings to all of you of any faith or
none! And in the true spirit of Christmas I’ve told everyone they can go
home an hour early on 24th December but don’t abuse the privilege or
it’ll be taken off you in 2015.

ADVISORY….This is a work of humorous fiction and
any similarities with persons or places real or imagined is purely a
matter of coincidence. If you’ve been bullied at Bulster University or
any F/HE institution don’t hesitate in complete confidence to E-MAIL: bullied.academics@yahoo.co.uk
Victims may complain without penalty under their college procedures or
consider making a complaint to their local police. Where the police are
contacted bullying usually ceases immediately.

As someone who has examined the equality policies and action plans of
every institution in the UK in the last 12 years, I identify three key
problems:

1) University leaders put money ahead of learning

Vice-chancellors, provosts and principals are running institutions
that see themselves more and more as corporations or conglomerates. They
are not understanding that financial management and brand leadership
should not displace the fact that universities are first and foremost
learning communities – and that the principal function of education is
to humanise society.

Management competence must be measured as much as anything else by
senior managers’ capacity to demonstrate a knowledge of employment law
and acceptable practice, and its convergence with equality and human
rights legislation. They need to know how they would ensure that it
forms the foundation on which they set about building and sustaining a
culture of equity.

2) HR protects senior management

Complaint procedures are often far too legalistic and bureaucratic
and are not as responsive as they might be to the pain and hurt that
staff routinely experience.

Rather than dealing with the offending conduct, institutions indulge
in a form of back covering and self justification which blocks their
ears to the messages that those suffering bullying wish to convey.
Rather than holding managers to account for respecting the rights of
employees, HR departments see it as their business to put a ring of
steel around offending managers and ignore the duty of care the
institution as employer has to those whom they bully.

Like schools and Ofsted, higher education appears to believe that the
institution’s place in the REF (research excellence framework) league
table is paramount and therefore whatever is done to achieve the highest
assessment is justifiable, irrespective of the denial of rights and the
damage it causes to individuals as differentiated by ethnicity, gender
disability etc.

3) Universities feel they are untouchable

Increasingly, these corporations believe that no one could hold them
to account on issues to do with employment law, employee relations and
their compliance with equality and human rights legislation. So, they
bully staff in respect of other organisational goals and in the process
contravene the very laws that are in place to protect people from such
abusive conduct.

When employees exercise their right to challenge them
externally, and the institutions capitulate and go for a compromise
agreement, such agreements invariably come with a non-disclosure or
gagging clause. Thus, the problem simply becomes embedded.

Too many institutions see it as being in their interest to settle out
of court and avoid massive legal fees and the danger of being found
guilty by an employment tribunal. But they also do this to silence the
victims of such abuse in return for a pay off.

They very rarely go on to scrutinise the management conduct that led
the victim to seek redress in the first place. Therefore, business goes
on as usual. The institution and the offending manager learn nothing and
have no incentive to review and alter their conduct, even though the
career of the complainant is pretty much ruined by the time matters get
to that stage, however hefty the pay out.

Universities and gagging clauses

AcademicFOI.com report
that over the last three years, 366 gagging clauses resulted from
employment tribunal claims against universities that were settled prior
to hearings. Those settlements involved payments to staff of £4.4m and
legal costs of £7.1m. 810 staff submitted claims to employment tribunals
for a range of alleged employment breaches, including bullying and
harassment. Academic FOI.com says of non-disclosure agreements:

“The exact wordings vary and are kept confidential but typically the
member of staff signs their agreement not to discuss their settlement
with anyone apart from immediate family or professional advisers. They
also agree not to publicly criticise the university or discuss the
dispute that led to the agreement being signed.”

In the interviews and focus group discussions I have held with
complainants in universities, however, everyone has pointed to the
stress, mental distress and disruption
they suffered before, during and after their decision to take their
complaint to the employment tribunal. The institution insulates itself
and moves on. Most complainants find it difficult if not impossible to
do so with their health, reputation and careers “intact”.

One would hope that this damning report would make the government
review the criteria for granting external validation to the sector and
re-examine the conditions upon which they continue to fund institutions
to carry on with business as usual, especially having regard to the
observations above.

Professor Gus John is a fellow of the london centre for
leadership in learning at the Institute of Education and visiting
faculty professor of education at the University of Strathclyde – follow
him on Twitter @Gus_John

December 15, 2014

I
am writing following our recent meetings in which we discussed your
current grant support and the prospects for the immediate future. The
last was our discussion around your PRDP, which I have attached.

As
we discussed, any significant external funding you had has now ended. I
know that you have been seeking further funding support with Charities
such as CRUK and the EU commission but my concern is that despite
submitting many grants, you have been unsuccessful in persuading
peer-review panels that you have a competitive application. Your
dedication to seek funding is not in doubt but as time goes by, this can
risk becoming a difficult situation from which to extricate oneself. In
other words, grant committees can become fatigued from seeing a series
of unsuccessful applications from the same applicant.

I am of the
opinion that you are struggling to fulfill the metrics of a Professorial
post at Imperial College which include maintaining established funding
in a programme of research with an attributable share of research spend
of £200k p.a and must now start to give serious consideration as to
whether you are performing at the expected level of a Professor at
Imperial College.

Over the course of the next 12 months I expect
you to apply and be awarded a programme grant as lead PI. This is the
objective that you will need to achieve in order for your performance to
be considered at an acceptable standard. I am committed to doing what I
can to help you succeed and will meet with you monthly to discuss your
progression and success in achieving the objective outlined. You have
previously initiated discussions in our meetings regarding opportunities
outside of Imperial College and I know you have been exploring
opportunities elsewhere. Should this be the direction you wish to
pursue, then I will do what I can to help you succeed.

Please be
aware that this constitutes the start of informal action in relation to
your performance, however should you fail to meet the objective
outlined, I will need to consider your performance in accordance with
the formal College procedure for managing issues of poor performance
(Ordinance ­D8) which can be found at the following link. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/secretariat/collegegovernance/provisions/ordinances/d8

December 11, 2014

Last time we “named and shamed” Bulster’s notorious VC “Tricky Dicky”
and his HR gopher-torturer, “Mad Bonnie”. We offered an expose of the
mediocre former nurses, school teachers, administrators and policy
“chancers” who make up the senior management team at Bulster University.
The
local UCU branch and many of their staff have argued that top
management have been so consistently ineffective over decades that the
only way Dicky could keep his multi-campus Gulag archipelago together, was through bullying at every level of this depressing institution.

Since
this misery is inflicted on Bulster University staff and students and
offered to the public on the bank-rolling of public money, our readers
are entitled to quiz the evidence of public shame in this province where
one might have thought the lofty European Declaration of Human Rights
might apply? Why is public money being wasted on a failed university?
And why are the moguls of Bulster University apparently so
unaccountable? With a HR Chief like Bonnie, Arthur Cox Solicitors are
the current in a long line of lawyers kept busy for Bulster University!

Among
universities in the UK and Ireland, Bulster University has consistently
been among the worst for harassment of staff, and for work-place
stress. It has among the highest rates of staff bringing cases to
Industrial Tribunal and has been the subject of a number of successful
landmark employment discrimination and bullying cases. Bulster
University’s track-record for industrial relations is so bad the
mild-mannered University and College Union which supposedly represents
most academic staff believe Bulster University is “off the scale” on
bullying and harassment of staff and needs a whole new category beyond
just “grey-listing”.

In
regard to its internal reconciliation of industrial conflict Bulster
University employs its own watch-dog or “University Visitor”, normally a
senior legal figure, but whose terms of reference make him or her a de-facto
employee of the University and who staff believe takes instructions
directly from the university administration. Under such a procedures the
Visitor, a person who is supposed to be genuinely independent and to
represent the Monarch in the interests of fair-play, could be no more
than an apology for an academic dictatorship.

Recently
these luke-warm powers have been weakened and the Royal Visitor cannot
now address employment issues. It is a sad indictment of Bulster that
it’s Legal Head “Olly” Mac is embroiled in a legal battle against the
University.

This has involved Olly being suspended from his post on several occasions and has placed him in head-on conflict with the “uber dictator”
his line manager, the universities Director of Torture and Execution,
“Mad Bonnie”. And for those who might feel some sympathy for Olly
getting a touch of his own nasty medicine, one should not forget this
legal supremo has “ducked and dived”, and allegedly “lied and falsified”
over decades of Industrial Tribunals brought by the University’s
desperately immiserated academic staff. Never reluctant to wield the
knife against his employees, it is a safe bet to say that nasty Olly is
just now getting it in his own ass!

We can also report that Olly’s boss, “Mad Bonnie”, may himself be on
his last days at the University. Subject to final disciplinary warning
for bullying and threats, Bonnie is now under police investigation for
criminal harassment and misconduct in public office. What also seems
likely is that once Dicky’s ship finally sinks, Bonnie will be drowned
with the other senior managements rats.

What
implications has all this bullying for academic standards at Bulster
University? Well for the malaise of plummeting academic standards in
every league table we must attribute a good deal of blame to the
University’s Provosts and academic deans who have been the enforcers of
the college torture chambers. One thinks in particular of former
Coleraine Provosts, Mal Blunt and Robbo “The Hutch”, both well
remembered for their over-use of “Mad” Ronnie and his HR heavies.

Not
quite s dazzling as the famous “TV cops”, our Campus Provosts “Blunt
and Hutch” had no scruples about bulldozing their colleagues along the
way. In the process this duo became infamous for allowing large-scale
closure of their programmes and singularly advancing their mediocre
academic careers. Blunt
was especially loathed by staff for his KGB-style web monitoring and
“cyber-trolling” of academics. Perhaps more famous for sporting prowess
than genuine scholarship, Blunt predictably turned campus management
into a “game sport”.

After a
week or two of “Blunt’s KGB treatment” his line-employees were cornered
like rabbits in a flash-light. “Hutch” who had a less than stellar
career as an economist is probably better known for being “economical
with the truth” at college disciplinary and employment tribunal
proceedings.

At most universities deans are custodians of collegiate knowledge.
Bulster University is singularly unique in maintaining a deanship
enforcing University House policy across the campus archipelago. Names
which come to mind among corporate tsars include an Arts Dean whose
life-hero is probably Polish General Jaruzelski, the former Communist
supremo who imposed martial law to crush the Solidarity democracy
movement.

Under
Bulster’s own General, the Arts faculty has been reduced to shreds, its
courses and staff dislocated across the archipelago and academic morale
in ruins. Great Arts course that worked well in cultural cities like
Derry were closed down while new ventures in scientific areas like
Pharmacy, Veterinary Science and Microbiology have yet to deliver!
In
Bulster academic leadership is less of a deanship and more of a
dictatorial tsar-ship! Then we have the recently elevated Milly
Dick whose gaff in accepting hundreds of unqualified students did not
prevent him making Pro-VC…a truly Ulster illustration of the corporate
American saying “f..k up and get kicked up…”Then
we have the over-promoted Dean Raisin in Life Sciences famously
ridiculed as Dicky’s most loyal dunce. Ms Raisin has wasted no time in
joining Dicky in the international “cookie trough”. With Dicky she was among about a dozen Bulsterboffinsaccepting substantial gifts from Saudi educational institutions (who now owe Bulster over £2m in unpaid fees).

Ranging from Rolexes, scarves and rugs, these might be interpreted as expensive “kick-backs” which the Senior Executive Team Minutes show resulted ultimately in a teminated contract, a £2 Million loss and the bizairre reality of a heavily indebted Bulster educating rich Saudi students at full cost to the local tax-payer. The Bulster managers got their gold watches, the university lost money, the tax-payer footed the bill, and local Northern Ireland students suffered from the short-fall.

Finally
we have Social Sciences golden man, and rumored to be Dicky’s
confidante, Micky Paul, whose rush to power shows how a Kingston boy can
make a few talents go a long way. And as his leader is about to bow out
as Bulster VC it is rumored that Dicky is also about to “come out
“about his sexual identity.

These
gossiped revelations recall those of a former Ulster University
Education Chief whose personal sex-change journey would have been viewed
more sympathetically even by Ulster’s “religious far-right” management
had she not also been a bullying maniac. In true Ulster Christian
fashion they allegedly ordered her thereafter to use the disabled
toilets!

Ousted from Ulster, she went on to be removed
for further bullying in Scotland. Well if indeed Dicky become one of our
first VC’s to come out as part of the LGBTI community, this might well
be one of his most honest actions at Bulster. But if announcement
follows the rumor mill, Dicky is likely to be compared negatively with
Thames Valley Uni’s flamboyant ear-ringed, pony-tailed bully Mike
Fitzgerald (pictured here) who finally resigned after a devastating
watchdog’s report said that degree standards at TVU could no longer be
guaranteed. Echoes of Dicky in Bulster although “Tricky Dicky’s” suits
are somewhat more sober and one doubts he’d ever get an ear-ring!

So
that’s all for now from our Dictator at Bulster University. Next time
we’ll take a look at what it’s genuinely like to be in one of Bulster
University’s torture chambers, and we’ll see if the keepers of the
torture machine, Dictator Dicky and “Mad Bonnie”, will finally get their
just deserts. Who knows maybe this would not be the first time Dicky
and Bonnie have worn handcuffs!

ADVISORY… This
is a work of humorous fiction and any similarities with persons or
places real or imagined is purely a matter of coincidence. If you’ve
been bullied at Bulster University or any F/HE institution don’t
hesitate in complete confidence to E-MAIL: bullied.academics@yahoo.co.uk
Victims may complain without penalty under their college procedures or
consider making a complaint to their local police. Where the police are
contacted bullying usually ceases immediately.

December 10, 2014

“…At the University of
Ulster, since 2009 there have been 16 claims lodged against the University of
Ulster, with 14 of these withdrawn before they reach tribunal. Of the remaining
two, one case is still ongoing and the other was won in favour of the
University. The University spent £67,282.45 on legal fees to fight this equal
pay case…”

“…A University of Ulster lecturer
whose fixed term contract was not renewed was unfairly dismissed and
discriminated against, a Northern Ireland industrial tribunal has ruled. He is
to receive compensation in excess of £36,000 for losses incurred.

The landmark
decision, in a case backed by UCU and Thompsons McClure Solicitors, clarifies
the employment rights of fixed-term workers.

The damning judgement of the tribunal describes the reasons given by the Human
Resources Director, Ronnie Magee, for not following a proper redundancy
procedure as 'simply breathtaking in their arrogance and inadequacy'…”

“…Ulster University is not only harassing
and bullying staff, they are also wasting an extraordinary amount of taxpayers
money on legal costs in the process. Here are the costs for one single
industrial tribunal case (IT): a whooping £72,990. This was only one case, UU
has been taken to the IT more times than any other UK university in the last
three years!...”

“…Does Mr. McCullough’s absence in the Tribunal case
substantiate the rumor that he is indeed suspended? If so, on what grounds he
is suspended? Would he face a disciplinary action? For what reason? Would there
be a tribunal case- Oliver McCullough vs. University of Ulster? Would Mr. Barry
Mulqueen, the usual barrister of the University of Ulster alongside Mr.
McCullough, would also represent Ulster and this time face Mr. McCullough?”

“…In
Biggart v University of Ulster, an employment
tribunal said that the University’s failure to consult with Dr Biggart when his
contract came to an end was an act of discrimination against him as a fixed
term worker…”

“…In 2009, Prof Holscher raised
concerns about the ethical conduct of Prof Howard after learning of his
involvement in the Alder Hey organs scandal. He told external bodies about his
past conduct. In 2012 a disciplinary hearing charged Holscher with pursuing a
vendetta against Howard. This year, at a second disciplinary hearing, Holscher
was demoted from professor to senior lecturer. Holscher has named nine senior
members of staff he claims were involved in a conspiracy against him and that
his demotion was linked to his complaints against Howard…”

“…In this piece we’d like to show you
what it’s like to be a staff member in such a failed institution as we get up
close and personal with the torturous disciplinary process of the Ulster Gulag.
Some partial explanation for this travesty may lie in the antecedent
institutions of Ulster University as the merged entity inherited academic
contracts which gave managers absolute power over academic staff, minimized
individual academic freedom and left Ulster University a despotic variety of
pre-92 institution by comparison with the relatively relaxed nature of
contracts in more mature institutions. Good people would not stay, and bad
management nurtured further mediocrity and repressive governance…”

December 07, 2014

A management culture that prefers to deal with complaints based on how
it suits. Ignore them and let bullies thrive as long as they are
"productive" and sing along the same song. But follow them and take
actions on those that might come against people that have a problem
with, to the point that they even manufacture them in order to achieve
what they want. For all their kind words, if you go to them with a
complaint management will work behind the scenes to make sure nothing
happens - a typical tactic is to wait so long that your legal options
have been timed out. Academic management have an excuse for being
useless - they aren't trained in management and are in constant fear
from the top. But Human Resources have no excuse. They know exactly what
they are doing. Some of them are malicious and seem to take pleasure in
the pain they cause. Top management (most of them failed academics
thirsty of power they could not get through their normal work/research)
is carnivorous.

This is an institution who has an employment
lawyer from one of the most expensive legal firms in the country (the
Queen's solicitors) on retainer, working on site one day a week. And
they make full use of them. The lawyer isn't there to help Imperial
stick to the law. They are there to help them get away with flouting it.

Now Stefan Grimm is dead. Despite having a good publication record, he failed to do sufficiently expensive research, so he was fired (or at least threatened with being fired).

“Speaking to Times Higher Education on condition of
anonymity, two academics who knew Professor Grimm, who was 51, said that
he had complained of being placed under undue pressure by the
university in the months leading up to his death, and that he had been
placed on performance review.”

It is my understanding that the interim head of his department had
written to Grimm along the following lines (but I have not yet got the
exact wording)

Your current level of funding does not constitute the
appropriate level for a professor at Imperial College. Unless you submit
and are awarded a Platform grant as PI in the next 12 months we will
seek to initiate disciplinary action against you. This email constitutes
a warning that your performance is being monitored and that action may
be brought if you fail to meet the conditions herein

It didn’t take long to get hold of an email from Grimm that has been
widely circulated within Imperial. The mail is dated a month after his
death. It isn’t known whether it was pre-set by Grimm himself or whether
it was sent by someone else. It’s even possible that it wasn’t written
by Grimm himself, though if it is an accurate description of what
happened, that’s not crucial.

No doubt any Imperial staff member would be in great danger if they
were to publish the mail. So, as a public service, I shall do so.

The email from Stefan Grimm, below, was prefaced by an explanation
written by the person who forwarded it (I don’t know who that was).

Dear Colleagues,

You may have already heard about the tragic death of Professor Stefan
Grimm a former member of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College.
He died suddenly and unexpectedly in early October. As yet there is no
report about the cause of his death. Some two weeks later a delayed
email from him was received by many of the senior staff of the medical
school, and other researchers worldwide. It has been forwarded to me by
one of my research collaborators. From my reading of it I believe that
Stefan wanted it circulated as widely as possible and for that reason I
am sending it to you. It is appended below.

This email represents just one side of an acrimonious dispute, but it may be indicative of more deep seated problems.

Dear all,
If anyone is interested how Professors are treated at Imperial College: Here is my story.

On May 30th ’13 my boss, Prof Martin Wilkins, came into my office
together with his PA and ask me what grants I had. After I enumerated
them I was told that this was not enough and that I had to leave the
College within one year – “max” as he said. He made it clear that he was
acting on behalf of Prof Gavin Screaton, the then head of the
Department of Medicine, and told me that I would have a meeting with him
soon to be sacked. Without any further comment he left my office. It
was only then that I realized that he did not even have the courtesy to
close the door of my office when he delivered this message. When I
turned around the corner I saw a student who seems to have overheard the
conversation looking at me in utter horror.

Prof Wilkins had nothing better to do than immediately inform my colleagues in the Section that he had just sacked me.

Why does a Professor have to be treated like that?

All my grant writing stopped afterwards, as I was waiting for the
meeting to get sacked by Prof Screaton. This meeting, however, never
took place.

In March ’14 I then received the ultimatum email below. 200,000
pounds research income every year is required. Very interesting. I was
never informed about this before and cannot remember that this is part
of my contract with the College. Especially interesting is the fact that
the required 200,000 pounds could potentially also be covered by
smaller grants but in my case a programme grant was expected.

Our 135,000 pounds from the University of Dammam? Doesn’t count. I
have to say that it was a lovely situation to submit grant applications
for your own survival with such a deadline. We all know what a lottery
grant applications are.

There was talk that the Department had accepted to be in dept for
some time and would compensate this through more teaching. So I thought
that I would survive. But the email below indicates otherwise. I got
this after the student for whom I “have plans” received the official
admission to the College as a PhD student. He waited so long to work in
our group and I will never be able to tell him that this should now not
happen. What these guys don’t know is that they destroy lives. Well,
they certainly destroyed mine.

The reality is that these career scientists up in the hierarchy of
this organization only look at figures to judge their colleagues, be it
impact factors or grant income. After all, how can you convince your
Department head that you are working on something exciting if he not
even attends the regular Departmental seminars? The aim is only to keep
up the finances of their Departments for their own career advancement.

These formidable leaders are playing an interesting game: They hire
scientists from other countries to submit the work that they did abroad
under completely different conditions for the Research Assessment that
is supposed to gauge the performance of British universities.

Afterwards
they leave them alone to either perform with grants or being kicked
out. Even if your work is submitted to this Research Assessment and
brings in money for the university, you are targeted if your grant
income is deemed insufficient. Those submitted to the research
assessment hence support those colleagues who are unproductive but have
grants. Grant income is all that counts here, not scientific output.

We had four papers with original data this year so far, in Cell Death
and Differentiation, Oncogene, Journal of Cell Science and, as I
informed Prof Wilkins this week, one accepted with the EMBO Journal. I
was also the editor of a book and wrote two reviews. Doesn’t count.
This leads to a interesting spin to the old saying “publish or perish”. Here it is “publish and perish”.

Did I regret coming to this place? I enormously enjoyed interacting
with my science colleagues here, but like many of them, I fell into the
trap of confusing the reputation of science here with the present
reality. This is not a university anymore but a business with very few
up in the hierarchy, like our formidable duo, profiteering and the rest
of us are milked for money, be it professors for their grant income or
students who pay 100 pounds just to extend their write-up status.

If anyone believes that I feel what my excellent coworkers and I have
accomplished here over the years is inferior to other work, is wrong.
With our apoptosis genes and the concept of Anticancer Genes we have
developed something that is probably much more exciting than most other
projects, including those that are heavily supported by grants.

Was I perhaps too lazy? My boss smugly told me that I was actually
the one professor on the whole campus who had submitted the highest
number of grant applications. Well, they were probably simply not good
enough.

I am by far not the only one who is targeted by those formidable
guys. These colleagues only keep quiet out of shame about their
situation. Which is wrong. As we all know hitting the sweet spot in
bioscience is simply a matter of luck, both for grant applications and
publications.
Why does a Professor have to be treated like that?

One of my colleagues here at the College whom I told my story looked
at me, there was a silence, and then said: “Yes, they treat us like
sh*t”.

Best regards,
Stefan Grimm

There is now a way for staff to register their opinions of their employers.The entries for Imperial College on Glassdoor.com suggest that bullying there is widespread (on contrast, the grumbles about UCL are mostly about lack of space).

Googling ‘imperial college employment tribunal’ shows a history of
bullying that is not publicised. In fact victims are often forced to
sign gagging clauses. In fairness, AcademicFOI.com shows
that the problems are not unique to Imperial. Over 3 years (it isn’t
clear which years), 810 university staff went to employment tribunals.
And 5528 staff were gagged. Not a proud record Imperial’s Department of Medicine web site says that one of its aims is to “build a strong and supportive academic community”. Imperial’s spokesman said “Stefan Grimm was a valued member of the Faculty of Medicine”.

The ability of large organisations to tell barefaced lies never ceases to amaze me.

I asked Martin Wilkins to comment on the email from Grimm. His
response is the standard stuff that HR issues on such occasions. Not a
word of apology, no admission of fault. It says “Imperial College London
seeks to give every member of its community the opportunity to excel
and to create a supportive environment in which their careers may
flourish.”. Unless, that is, your research is insufficiently expensive,
in which case we’ll throw you out on the street at 51. For completeness,
you can download Wilkins’ mail.

If anyone has more correspondence which ought to be known, please
send it to me. I don’t reveal sources (if you prefer, use my non-College
email david.colquhoun72 (at) gmail.com).

Join the Bullied Academics Yahoo Group

Useful and informative Links

• Bad Apple Bullies - If you work as a teacher in Queensland, a Bad Apple Bully principal can destroy your health and your career with malicious gossip and secret sticky-notes.

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• Bully Online - Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully. Bully OnLine is the world's leading web site on workplace bullying and related issues which validates the experience of workplace bullying and provides confirmation, reassurance and re-empowerment.

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• The Workplace Bullying Institute is the sole United States organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying through public education, help for individuals, employer solutions and legislative advocacy.